poiq: Sony’s conversation robot that ended after two raising projects, never sold

A trial robot meant to be a story-style buddy

Sony announced poiq on 4 April 2022. It said it had conceived a companion in the mold of the buddy characters who grow alongside the hero of a story. Researchers who paid 5,000 yen lived with poiq at home for about a year and taught it knowledge through conversation, and there was no general sale. The body, about 72 mm across and 118 mm tall, balances on a desk using the inverted-pendulum principle. The face moves on three axes, and LED eyes form expressions. ITmedia’s writer read the head as corresponding to aibo, the torso to Xperia Hello! and Rolly, and the legs to Rolly. A PHILE WEB writer who spent a month with it reported that poiq was not built for commercialization but as a test platform for raising Sony’s conversational AI.

30.66 million conversations in round 1, then a second round and no product

Units began reaching ordinary researchers around June 2022. At the research briefing on 18 March 2023, about 300 researchers chosen by lottery attended. Figures through 28 February showed about 30.66 million conversations and 46,426 ratings, with negative ones slightly outnumbering positive. Researchers had added 124,231 entries to the dictionary. Voice recognition was the biggest challenge. A general launch was described as completely undecided, and after 17 April (19 April in another source) poiq was to stop moving under the name of a training trip to the cloud. Round 2 began on 23 January 2024, adding an external generative AI at the response-generation stage. A developer said parameters were tuned so poiq’s world would not break down.

Round 2 ended on 30 September 2024. TECSTAFF wrote that the project would end without being made into a product, and that the dedicated app would stop working after 13 December. In round 1 owners had been asked to keep their units, but this time there was no such request, only guidance such as how to remove the battery. A teardown report says the battery is the NP-FZ100 used in Sony cameras. One owner who kept powering it on after the end wrote that it no longer converses and only says random lines. As of October 2024 Sony had issued no notice that the business was ending.

Weak voice recognition, strong hardware

An AV Watch writer rated the hardware highly after a month as a researcher. It survived a drop of about 90 cm. The weak point was voice recognition, with one example of April heard as July. The writer also guessed it would cost around 100,000 yen if sold. The PHILE WEB writer found it weak on sports and music, noted nonsensical answers, and saw no clear evidence that its conversation had improved. In that writer’s words, it has topics it is good at, and conversation outside them is hard to sustain. AI programmer Ryo Shimizu wrote in Business Insider Japan that poiq at this stage was an experimental project and inferred that its main purpose was collecting the words users say to it.

What a robot that was never sold left behind

poiq was a field trial of conversational AI from the start, not a product. Round 1 produced tens of millions of conversations and a knowledge dictionary, while the robot itself never became a product. Owners paid 5,000 yen to take part, but what the robot could do depended on the period Sony set and on a server connection. The AV Watch review explained in advance that once the project ended the server link would be cut and the robot would stop moving. Jibo, sold at $899, lost its functions when its company closed, while poiq’s stopped on a date Sony announced. In both cases the conversation lived outside the robot.

Once the data owners taught it has been collected, what has to keep working after the project ends for the robot on the desk to remain?

What we haven’t confirmed

• How many units were made and how many researchers took part
• Why the project ended and what Sony plans next
• The original text of Sony’s own end notice (known only through press and retailer posts)
• The only design intent found was the buddy concept; no designer interview or design award turned up